


The Shatter Wish

by Novantinuum (ChromaticDreams)



Series: Brandishing the Star: A Crystal Gem's Guide to the Universe (SU shorts) [16]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Homeworld (Steven Universe), Mental Health Issues, POV Second Person, Pre-Steven Universe Future, Steven and Spinel have some mental health issues in common, Suicidal Thoughts, kinda just a vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27873157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChromaticDreams/pseuds/Novantinuum
Summary: You’re 16 years and 2 months old (give or take a few days) when you finally realize you want to die.-(Steven's POV, second person)
Relationships: Spinel & Steven Universe
Series: Brandishing the Star: A Crystal Gem's Guide to the Universe (SU shorts) [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1491011
Comments: 8
Kudos: 51





	The Shatter Wish

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags. This fic involves frank discussion of suicidal ideation.

You’re 16 years and 2 months old (give or take a few days) when you finally realize you want to die.

Internally, you tend not to state this desire with such a blunt attitude. Externally... you’d never state this desire at all. But logically, in that tiny sliver of brain left that’s still able to conceptualize the world around you with some meager sense of rationality, it’s as simple as addition. Any lingering wish to perish, or to disappear, or for one’s body to cease to be, to phase out of reality forever— yadda yadda, any newfangled, metaphoric, delicate way you could ever dream up to describe it— is merely paper thin foil wrapped around a death wish.

Most days, you flat out don’t want to exist. 

Ergo, you want to die.

It’s such a simple leap in logic that you’re mildly surprised you didn’t come to this conclusion months earlier. Not too surprised, though. When most of one’s later childhood is spent in a constant state of threat and hyper-vigilance, you quickly become acclimated to such feelings. And eventually, with time, you can’t remember how it truly feels to meet any should-be-shocking scenario with more than numb acceptance. 

Hell, you can’t remember the last time you truly felt like anything, past the facade of all your too-big smiles and easy laughter. 

You’re so tired of all this.

“You ever just... want to stop?” you asked Spinel on impulse that day, dangling your feet off the edge of the palace balcony you’re both sitting on.

(You can’t help but gaze impassively at the vast drop below you, knowing full well that— if you so wanted— you could push yourself off at any moment... and choose... not to float. Thanks to your latent healing ability you know the impact would merely hurt instead of escorting you straight out of this mortal plane, but at least hurt feels like  _ something.) _

“Stop what, dummy?” she says, with a snort of laughter and a punch to your shoulder. It‘s far harder than she probably intends, but you barely wince. You’re well used to her unaware force by now. “Or is this supposed to be some sorta guessin’ game?”

You and Spinel aren’t exactly friends. At least not to the extent that you might call people like, say, Connie or Peridot or Lars friends. You don’t willingly ‘hang out.’ (Even today, you’re only here sitting on the edge of this balcony together because you wanted to have an audience with the Diamonds about various Gem society matters and they’re currently busy dealing with a cluster of unruly Pyropes.) You’ll probably never greet Spinel with anything more than a polite smile. Today is, in fact, actually the longest duration of time you’ve spent alone together since she nearly killed you two months back. But you suppose her intimate experience with apathy mixed with your lack of emotional investment with her is all the more reason to trust that— unlike literally everyone else you know— she won’t blow a big fuss over the topic you’re about to broach. With her, and only her, talking about this sort of thing is safe.

After all, why would she care? Two months ago she wanted you dead anyways.

“No, no,” you shake your head. “It’s not a game. I meant stop as in... stop. End. Cease to be.”

All her enthusiasm brakes to an instant halt as she narrows her eyes at you incredulously. “You’re kidding, right? You’re asking... me— abandoned for thousands of years in a stagnating garden,  _ me— _ If I ever thought about... well.” She blows a raspberry, and sticks her thumb to the ground. “Non-existence?”

You wait. She’s not finished yet. You may not know her that well, but even someone with a minimum of two interactions with this Gem would glean enough to understand her underlying nature: that she thrives off being the center of attention. It’s a vice you try your best to avoid slipping into yourself, when you’re not otherwise saddled with duty to Gemkind and unable to avoid the spotlight.

(After all, it’s easier existing these days when no one’s watching. When you don’t have to play pretend that everything’s Normal and Fine when it’s most definitely Not.)

“Gee, of course I did,” she says, sure enough. “Back in the olden days of Homeworld, they used to call that the ‘shatter wish.’ A colloquialism, that. All manner of Gems would think it one day or another, don’t matter their role. Beryls, pearls, quartzes. They’d eventually grow weary of the ceaseless dirge of Gem society, and would inwardly beg for release from the cycle.”

Your brows knit together, listening intently. “Release?”

“Some tried to shatter themselves,” she explains somberly. “Others purposefully sabotaged their own positions to convince their superiors to do the shattering for them. And then cowards like me, we were too timid to do anything but imagine that we never existed in the first place. But it’s a shatter wish all the same. Doesn’t matter  _ how _ you envision it happening. And stuff like that...” Spinel pauses, pursing her lips as she stares beyond, at the hustle and bustle of Homeworld far below. “Even with the good times, it doesn’t just go away, y’know?”

Even after you stop talking to her, and you force your eyes away from the thousand foot drop beyond the balcony you’re perched on, even after your routine meeting with the Diamonds, even  _ after _ you finally warp back to Earth and feel its familiar gravity reassert its hold on your weary body, you can’t stop thinking about what she said.

About the shatter wish...

_...we were too timid to do anything but imagine that we never existed in the first place. _

You’ve definitely dreamed of non-existence, that’s for sure... whether that’s by never being born, or being shattered at the hands of the Diamonds for crimes you didn’t personally commit, or something else entirely... And it’s been like this for a long time, since your early teens, you realize, cataloguing this new fact in your mind as easily as if it‘s of no more concern than today’s weather. 

So in a way, you guess a broken part of you has always wanted to die. 

Until now, you simply never had the words for it.

**Author's Note:**

> So, story about this one.
> 
> I wrote this over a year ago, shortly after the movie came out- and long before SUF. I wrote it as a means of personal expression, as a means to try and understand my own emotions and mental state. Thus, the experiment with second person perspective. I wrote it never, ever imagining that SUF itself would actually dare to tackle the topic of _Steven's_ mental state. (And I will forever thank Crewniverse for taking such a bold risk in doing so. Personally speaking, I felt seen, and I felt heard, and it meant the world to me.) 
> 
> Now that I'm thankfully in a bit of a better place, I'm posting this as a means of emotional release, to finally get this out of my head. It's been trapped in there far too long.
> 
> In many ways, I still consider this as "canon compliant" in my mind. Within my personal interpretation of Steven, there's the "surface Steven" he shows everyone else, the smiling, eager, ever-compassionate teenager who saved the galaxy and is always here to help. And then, beyond the cracks in this facade he tries not to expose to others, there's all this inner turmoil. The exhaustion, the numbness, these turbulent thoughts of not really wanting to exist as he is anymore. It's a layer I often don't reveal in full in my other fics, but I thought it was worth peering into here.
> 
> Thank you to anyone who chose to read, and I wish you all the best. Let's do our best to take care of ourselves, and stay connected with others this season.


End file.
